Of No Value...: A Police Officer in a Decaying Culture

By MJ Claude

The decaying culture is us, Christians that have accepted and promoted the world's paradigms and mores into our churches and homes. This acceptance has slowly eroded our values, morality, and understanding of the written work of the Holy Spirit.

The author of this book, MJ Claude, has an intimate understanding of what individuals that work our streets as emergency medical technicians, firefighters, police officers, and their families endure from day to day, month to month, year to year.

This book was not written to bring these brave and dedicated people accolades or praise; this book was written to shed light on the attitudes, behaviors, and treatment to the rule of law and toward those individuals whose job it is to enforce the law and protect innocent lives. For those who run into the fire or risk their life to save another. Police officer /po-lice of-fi-cer/n.--someone who enforces the law, is courageous, serves, sacrifices and protects, a true hero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639615490

Book preview

1

Making a Living Is Hard to Do

Shane Hoeben had a college degree that provided no pathway for employment. After attending a paramedic training program and attaining a national paramedic certification, he found a job with an ambulance service in his hometown of Large River, Michigan. The pay was a couple of dollars above minimum wage, but it was a job. While in training, Shane, Katie, and the girls moved in with Katie’s parents who lived near the training school in Indiana. When Shane found employment, he moved the girls up to Large River to his parents’ rental home and old farm home on forty-six acers with a river running through the property. The old home required a lot of work, and Shane Sr. decided to offer the kids the home on land contract.

Shane and Katie set to work making the old farmhouse into a home. The girls had an old barn and plenty of woods to adventure in. The ambulance company was located in downtown Large River, and Shane, being a new hire, was given the 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. shift. His first partner was Robert Edgewood. The administration of the company recognized Shane’s education and paired him with Edgewood, a street-savvy medic who was very good at skills but lack in the medical knowledge in diagnosis and drugs. Edgewood was tall, athletic, and he resembled the actor Clint Eastwood. Shane admired Edgewood’s moxie but realized Robert had an ego to match his persona.

The night shift was 45 percent medical calls, patients with illness, heart problems, diabetics, and the like. Fifty-five percent were trauma care, and during the day hours, trauma meant mainly motor vehicle crashes, but at night, in this good Christian community of Large River, population of one hundred sixty thousand people, it was shootings, stabbings, and blunt force trauma. Shane found himself in for a whole new education in the field of emergency street medicine and what Large River was really like after the sun went down.

Robert Edgewood was the perfect partner to introduce Shane to after-dark activity in Large River. Edgewood was from New York City and came to the Midwest as a Coastie, a US Coast Guard sailor. Robert decided to stay on in Large River after he had completed his time in the Coast Guard.

The partnership was together about a week. They had chest pain calls, difficulty breathing, and the like, then came the baptism. The medics were dispatched to a location just south of downtown Large River at 2:30 a.m. The call came in from the police; it was trauma patient that had been shot several times. Edgewood was immediately fired up. Shane was immediately full of adrenaline and anticipation; Shane could feel his heart beating and a lump in his throat.

Shane followed Robert’s lead as they exited the ambulance. Officers directed them to a very large black man still standing on the sidewalk. The victim was a young African American in his early twenties. He was a giant, six feet five inches and over four hundred pounds. There were no streetlights at this corner. Flashlights revealed only blood on the pavement. The male was still lucid and was walking. Edgewood told Shane to grab an arm and they would help the man into the back of the ambulance. Both medics got bloodied. The unseen wounds were on both sides of the victim’s body. As soon as the man entered the ambulance, he collapsed. With the interior lights of the ambulance, the medics found multiple bullet holes in the young man’s belly. With a level two trauma center just two blocks away, the medics plugged the holes they found with sterile dressings, put in a simple airway in place, and sped to St. Mary’s emergency room. Edgewood slipped in a large bore IV with blood tubing before they got to the entrance door.

Awaiting their arrival was a very well-known ER doctor, Dr. Casey Adams. Dr. Adams was a rare individual in the emergency medical field. He was both MD and PhD, was very supportive of the street medicine and paramedics, a very popular physician with medics and patients. When the medics came through the door, Dr. Adam took control. Edgewood’s radio communications with Adams gave the doc all he needed to prepare the emergency room staff and call the surgical trauma team to standby.

All the efforts were for not; the young street enforcer had lost too much blood, and he was pronounced dead shortly after reaching the ER. The medics assisted the ER staff and Dr. Adams during the attempts to revive the patient. In the ER, the staff found eight bullet holes on first examination but found a ninth in the lower stomach area; it had been covered by overlapping flesh. Shane was astounded at what he just saw, and he was riding an adrenaline high, which in time would become addicting.

Shane was having a hard time believing what he had seen and been involved working the night shift. He could hardly believe the Jekyll and Hyde personality of the city of Large River—in the daytime, clean, hardworking community with a church in every block, but at night, full of violence and gang activity, with a high volume of drug activity. He also couldn’t figure out where the news media was in all of this. Large River’s secret night life was going to stay a secret. It was the year 1990. Shane had called Large River home all of his life and could not believe what had been hidden.

Street violence in Large River was increasing between gangs trying to control the drug trade. Paramedics found themselves in a city of violence and were experiencing trauma that was more likened to a mash unit in a theater of war. It was two weeks later when Shane and Robert were dispatched to a shooting on the northeast side of downtown. Large River Police were on a scene with a single victim with gunshot wounds to the head. The medics arrived on a scene that, again, had no working streetlights; everything in the dark was becoming the rule.

Working only with flashlights, the medics were directed by an officer on scene to the body on the sidewalk. The officer let the medics know the shooter could still be in the area. Shane felt the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, but he stepped out into the darkness ahead of Edgewood. Hoeben found the African American male lying face up still breathing, but the breathing was in an abnormal rhythm. When Shane brought light up to the man’s face, he grimaced. Both eyes were bulging out of his eye sockets, and feeling for the wound, he felt the man’s skull. The skull was solid from front to back until Shane got to the middle of the head. From there he felt a crumbling, shifting flesh. In the back of the man’s head, Shane’s fingers found the gaping hole. The man was in his forties, had a strong pulse, and how he was still breathing was amazing. Edgewood assisted Hoeben, and with bandaging the wound, the oozing blood and gray matter flow was stopped. Shane had pulled the trauma bag, and while Robert and the firefighters back-boarded the man, Hoeben slid in a 14-gauge needle with the blood tubing and a 1,000 cc bag running wide open.

At St. Mary’s ER, Dr. Adams was more than happy to have both medics continue helping with the man’s care and to see the outcome. X-rays revealed the man had been shot with two twenty-gauge shotgun slugs at close range. The slugs had entered the back of the man’s skull and, in an upward projection, followed the skull and lodged just behind the eyes. The upper brain was destroyed, but the brainstem continued to function.

A Large River Police sergeant showed up at the ER and filled in the blanks. The man had been shot by a fourteen-year-old black male; they had a confession. It had been a drug deal gone bad, and the dissatisfied customer let the seller know his dissatisfaction with lead from a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

Shane found the emergency medical street work challenging and a true adrenaline ride, but the pay for a man with a family was tough. He worked overtime anytime it was offered, sometimes working over a month straight, twelve-hour shifts, without a day off. Shane started to feel like he looked, a walking zombie. After three years at nights, he had enough seniority to move to the day shift.

Shane’s first day shift was with a supervisor because there were not enough medics to cover. It was an opportunity to get to know Mike Badels. Mike was a large man with a quick wit and potty mouth. Supervisor Badels gave Shane the lead with all patient care, recognizing Shane’s abilities. They got along very well.

The shift started with multiple hospital transfers, some with patients in critical condition that included one baby. There were no breaks. Once one transfer was done, dispatch sent the unit to the next, to be interrupted only by emergency calls, and the interruption was much welcomed by Shane. There was an issue that Shane found profoundly frightening. Many times hospital staff had PPEs (personal protection equipment) to the maximum with a transfer patient but left the medics completely in the dark. The medics would make a mad dash to cover themselves. This issue kept getting worse, not better.

Mike and Shane had completed seven transfers. When they got the break Shane had prayed for, they were dispatched to a car crash at the expressways’ overpass where the two major expressways intersected in downtown Large River. They were just a couple of minutes from the scene and arrived on the overpass of westbound expressway 86 over the northbound expressway 41. The Michigan State Police officer pointed over the bridge railing to the northbound lanes of expressway 41, thirty feet below. Both medics saw the obvious skid marks and damage on the bridge wall and railing.

Shane headed down the embankment with cervical collars and a trauma bag while Supervisor Badels grabbed the ambulance and headed for the ramp. The vehicle was on its roof, the front of the sedan was smashed, and the roof flattened almost to the body. The engine was steaming. There was just enough room between body and roof for Shane to shimmy into the vehicle. He found the female, middle age, driver curled against the roof still held there by the seat belt. Shane couldn’t believe what he found: She was bloodied by broken glass but alive and alert! Shane’s brief exam found no serious injuries. He applied the cervical collar and cut her free. Badels helped extricate the woman from the car and transported her to the hospital where doctors found only minor injuries.

The woman told Shane the Lord had protected her. Looking at mechanism of the crash and the damage to the vehicle, both medics knew they had witnessed a true miracle.

The very next day shift was with a female senior medic, Lynn St. James. Lynn was a veteran medic, five feet two inches tall and one hundred pounds. What Lynn lacked in size, she made up for in energy and tenacity. Shane very quickly realized no one was going to outdo or outwork Lynn.

On this particular day, the schedule was full of hospital transfers, and to Lynn, that meant the hustle was on. Lynn would not refuse a call; that would mean Shane would get a chance to eat that day. Coffee was the only substance to sustain the body. Midway through the afternoon, after their twelve transfers, Shane was driving, and he looked over at Lynn, and her head was up against the side window, eye closed. Shane called to her, and she did not respond. He jabbed her shoulder and still no response. Shane pulled into a parking lot and assessed his partner. She started to respond but was incoherent. His brief exam revealed Lynn was dehydrated and hypoglycemic (low blood sugar). Shane started an IV and gave Lynn dextrose (a complex sugar) and 1,000 cc of normal saline. Lynn received a quick examination at St. Mary’s Hospital and was sent home.

This was not the first time nor the last Shane worked a day shift where the crew did not get a scheduled break. Private ambulance services were about customer service and making money, and they were the only advanced emergency medical service in west Michigan. Municipal fire departments were first aid first responders only. There are no unions to protect medics. Shortly after going to day shift, the ambulance company promoted Shane.

Shane was promoted to senior medic and went straight back to nights. He was given a new partner fresh out of school. The young man’s name was Keith Carpenter, last month’s graduating class out of the local paramedic college. Keith was very enthusiastic and up to date on all the latest and greatest in the emergency medicine field. Carpenter’s medic skills were adequate on low priority calls, but extreme cases Shane took the lead. By the third week, Keith was doing well. His diagnostic skills were good, and his physical skills of starting IVs and intubation were a work in progress.

It was the last shift of the third week. It started out busy and accelerated from there. The crew got stacked with calls, and many were priority calls. Carpenter and Hoeben had three class one patient (no pulse or breathing) that shift, and they were given a late call to boot.

Keith was very excited throughout the shift, and he performed very well. Both medics were on an adrenaline high when they got the late call for a bus driver with difficulty breathing at the main hotel in downtown Large River. It was 5:15 a.m. The crew had been on duty since 5:30 p.m. the night before. The sixty-seven-year-old man was the driver of a tour bus that came in from Chicago with sixty-five elderly people.

The crew was directed to the man’s hotel room and found him sitting in chair leaning forward, very pale. The man’s breathing was shallow and fast and spoke in broken sentences. He told the medics he was under a doctor’s care for congestive heart failure. The man was begging for help. Paramedic Hoeben grabbed a stethoscope and listened. The man’s lungs were full of fluid. Shane explained to him the nasal intubation procedure. The man shook his head yes; he had it done before. Shane wondered how the man still had a commercial driver’s license. Keith jumped in and prepared and started an IV. Shane gave the man a nitroglycerin under his tongue and 40 mgs of Lasix IV. Shane then gave 5 mg of morphine. Hoeben then slid the intubation tube through the man’s nostril, using the trigger pull on the tube, continued the tube past the epiglottis and into the bronchi. Using the stethoscope, Keith verified the tube was in. Shane started assisting his breathing.

The patient responded. He was not clawing at the medics begging for air. The medications and the pressurized breathing assistance left him calm with good color and excellent vitals. The hospital staff were very impressed with the crew’s care.

Keith was riding high. The crew pulled into the ambulance bay at the company and could not stop talking about what had transpired that day. Shane was exhausted and just wanted to go home. Katie and the two girls had already left for work and school. Shane was about to drop into bed when the pager went off. Shane was tempted not to answer but did anyway. The message was from the day supervisor, Badels. Badels requested Shane to call ASAP. Badels informed Shane he had just received a phone call from Keith’s wife, Kathy. Kathy, through breathy crying, informed Supervisor Badels that she went to kiss Keith good by as she went to work. Keith was not breathing and was cold to the touch. Kathy explained to Mike that medics tried to revive Keith, but he was already gone. Keith had died shortly after going to bed.

Keith’s autopsy indicated he had died from an undetected heart condition. The continuous stress of the shift caused a very fast heart rate that caused his death.

The ambulance company honored Keith’s family’s request to allow Keith to be buried in his paramedic uniform. Shane received another newbie by the name of Jeremy Collins. Jeremy’s partner found a new position with a local fire department. Shane was now considered a seasoned veteran with over four years on the streets, including one dead partner.

The very first shift with Jeremy the crew was given a priority one gunshot victim. It was 2:43 a.m. The crew was only three blocks from the location just south of downtown Large River City. The ambulance was on scene within ninety seconds from the time they were dispatched. Shane jumped from the driver’s seat of the ambulance and a Large River police officer directed him to a shadow in the middle of the dark street. Jeremy followed with the trauma bag. The streetlights left the victim in the shadows. The officer and the two medics approached. Their flashlights illuminated a young black female. It was an eerie sight. The young woman was sitting upright on her haunches in middle of the street. The girl’s arms were in her lap, and her head was down against her chest. Shane bent down with his flashlight and looked into her face. Her eyes were open in a dead stare, and there was blood coming down the middle of her face from her forehead. In the middle of her forehead was a small caliber bullet hole. The officer told the medics to step it up. The shooter had not been located.

Shane found no signs of life and directed Jeremy to grab the ECG, following protocol, and get the two lead reads for the record. Jeremy attached the ECG. The machine revealed flat line in two leads. The medics pulled the leads and quickly headed back to the ambulance, watching in every direction for possible movement of the shooter. Jeremy had just put the equipment away when both medics heard screaming and crying mixed; it was maybe a block away. A police sergeant came running up to the medics and ordered them to remove the girl before the group of women got to the location. The crew scrambled to get the stretcher and grab the girl prior to the group coming around the corner.

Jeremy and Shane loaded the dead girl quickly. St. Mary’s Hospital was four blocks away. Shane told Jeremy to drive non-emergency to the hospital while he radioed the ER with their predicament. Dr. Casey Adams answered the radio. Shane informed Dr. Adams the crew was en route to the hospital non-emergency with a young female with a gunshot wound to the head. There was silence on the radio after the good doctor asked for the patient’s vitals, and Shane informed him there were none. Dr. Adams immediately questioned the priority, and all Shane could say was he would clarify on arrival.

This was Jeremy’s second shooting call, and two were enough for him. Jeremy requested a transfer to dispatch, and his request was granted.

2

The Daytime Medic

When Jeremy Collins requested and received a transfer to a day shift, Shane Hoeben, who now had four years seniority and was a senior medic, decided a permanent day shift is where he needed to be. His life working twelve-hour night shifts and sleeping in the day made him a stranger to his wife and daughters. Shane and Katie’s two daughters were three years apart. The eldest, Rae, was ten years old, and Annie was seven.

Shane had become very frustrated with the situation they were in—college loan debt, low wages for a job with huge responsibility and stress, and no time for his own life and family. He prayed daily for a new direction, and he was becoming impatient with the Lord. Paramedics provide crucial care for everyone in this society, rich and poor alike. Shane had given lifesaving care to people living on the street of Large River and to some of the richest men in Michigan, heck, in the world. All depending on and trusting in his knowledge and skills for their very lives, yet his pay was just above what burger flippers received at McDonald’s. Shane realized it was time to start looking for his third career.

Back on day shift Shane was partnered with Greg Henry, another senior medic, and the two hit if off immediately. Greg had a gregarious personality with a quick wit and intelligent to boot. Greg’s parents were both medical doctors, and his two older siblings had professional degrees as well. Greg was, in his word, the black sheep of the family. He never gave his educational background, but he was a phenomenal medic. Their shift was 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. It made for a long day, but it was days. Thank God.

The first shift the crew had together, their second call was in the early morning in downtown Large River. They were dispatched for an unresponsive adult male lying in an alley. It was mid-January, twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit, and both medics were not optimistic on this outcome. When the medics arrived, two police officers pointed at the back side of the building just off Main St. It was six fifteen in the morning, and the city was still in darkness. As soon as the medics rounded the corner of the building and entered the alley, they saw the man lying facedown. The building had lighting that made it bright as midday. The victim was a white male. His face was turned toward the crew as they approached. The man’s arms were tucked under his torso, his eyes wide open with the doll’s eye stare, and there was a lot of clotted blood in the hair and on his neck and from the back of the man’s head.

Greg attempted to roll the victim, but the body would not budge; it was frozen to the sidewalk. Both medics recognized the man. He was a homeless Vietnam vet that lived under the expressway bridge just a few blocks away. The medics did the standard ECG for the record and cleared the murder scene. Neither medic heard anything more about the case, from police or the media. It was like it never happened.

This would not be the only encounter with military veterans living on the streets of Large River. Greg liked the action of the downtown area. Henry had seniority to Hoeben, so the downtown beat was their area. The crew would have regular encounters with the homeless until the cold winter months. The vets would find help and shelter with the Christian street ministries. These ministries housed, clothed, and fed these men when the temperature dropped below freezing. During the warmer months, most of these men went back on the streets full time.

One such individual was a forty-six-year-old double amputee who went by the street name of GI Joe. Shane liked the man. He was quiet and unassuming, but his smell during the summer months could be unbearable. He did little for his own hygiene. Joe had lost both legs just above the knees to a land mine in Vietnam and had become an alcoholic. Joe spent the winter months living at the Christian ministries. During the warmer months, he preferred to live on the street independently. The medics had several encounters with the vet for alcohol overdoses, but more recently, it was infections from the lack of hygiene. GI Joe had given his heart to the Lord Jesus and no longer drank, but he remained on the streets trying to help fellow vets. Joe was confined to a wheelchair and had a PO box where he received his benefits.

It was an early morning in late May when the crew were called to assist GI Joe. May had been a very warm month, and most homeless vets were back on the street full time. The caller was the groundskeeper of the presidential museum. He had found Joe near the memorial unresponsive. The morning was still, humid, and warm. The medics followed the caller to Joe’s location. Half a block away the pungent odor was undeniable.

Joe was unresponsive at first contact but became more alert as the medics worked with him. He had a high fever, and vitals verified he was septic and unstable. Greg prepared the stretcher with absorbing pads and extra sheets. The medics lifted Joe from his wheelchair and placed him on the stretcher. The museum employee who had called all of a sudden vomited. The medics looked back to the sound of the man throwing up and saw an amazing sight. Joe’s wheelchair seat was white and had a unique texture like a wool seat pad, but this pad was moving. The wheelchair seat was covered with over a half-inch of live maggots. The maggots had been living off Joe’s rotting flesh, keeping his sores from become gangrenous. Shane drove to Large River Hospital, the largest hospital in west Michigan. The hospital had a special hazmat washing area.

The emergency room staff at the hospital were fantastic with Joe. The nurses carefully bathed Joe with care and patience, and not one of the staff grimaced at the sights or smells. This incident proved what Shane believed all along: God has given special people a special calling to care for people. These intelligent, highly skilled group of nurses were gently washing and treating this man who could do nothing for himself.

The summer went by quickly into fall, and weather changes were the things that street medics had to adapt too in both dress and driving conditions. Henry and Hoeben were now into a very comfortable rhythm. Shane’s education and additional training through the national program and Greg’s intelligence and tenacity created a unique dynamic. The outcome of the duo’s patient care got some strange responses by the docs at the receiving hospitals.

One such case was a seventy-two-year-old male with advanced lung cancer. The crew were dispatched to the man’s home. He was found unresponsive by his sixty-eight-year-old wife. When the medics arrived, the Large River Fire Department was just pulling up. The group went in the home together. The man’s wife was very emotional, demanding they do something. The patient was not breathing, and no pulses were found. Shane put the fire department first responders to work doing high intensity CPR. Greg did a quick look at the paddles. The man was flat line. Shane asked the woman her husband’s history and whether or not he had do not resuscitate orders. The man’s wife told the group her husband had lung cancer and only one lung left; there were DNR orders, but she wanted everything that could be done to be done.

Shane encouraged the firefighters to continue CPR, and he prepared and then intubated the man. Greg set up the IV and pulled the drugs for resuscitation. Henry gave two doses of adrenaline and then a fluid bolus. Shane breathed for the man with the respiration bag attached to the tube going into the man’s lungs. Hoeben cheered on the firefighter as they continued the CPR. Both medics agreed on another increased dose of adrenaline and then a drug called atropine and another fluid bolus. Shane ordered all to stop their activity to check for vitals. The ECG indicated the man’s heart now had electrical rhythm; a check on the carotid artery indicated there was now a pulse. The slow heart rhythm continued to increase, and soon the man had a detectable blood pressure.

Upon arrival at the hospital, the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure were in the normal range. He was making a weak effort to breathe on his own. The receiving staff doctors, after receiving the patient’s current medical history, were not happy. The medics were called on the carpet for why they had gone ahead with resuscitation of this man. Greg was quick to point out the wife’s demands, and all went silent. Both medics were quietly impressed with the incident, proud of the teamwork and the outcome. The man never did regain consciousness and died.

The crew had now survived the summer and fall, the busiest months for EMTs who worked the streets of Large River. Winter was slower in street violence, but traffic crashes increased twofold. The crew had a slow day and were sitting point on the lower west side of the Large River metropolitan area, in the suburb city of Grand Junction. It was midmorning on a Saturday with bright sunshine in early January. The medics were relaxing with their third cup of coffee when dispatch called. The call was requested by Grand Junction police to standby during a violent domestic between a father and his seventeen-year-old stepson. The son had found the man’s handgun and was now threatening to shoot the father and police.

Shane was driving and was approaching the staging point when dispatch gave an update. The boy had fled the scene, and officers were chasing the teen into the nearby park. A snowstorm had come through the area the night before, and there was a fresh eight inches of wet snow covering everything. Dispatch cleared the medics to meet police officers in the parking lot of the park. Officers had located the boy. He had turned the gun on himself. Officers with the teen told dispatch he had shot himself in the head but was still breathing.

The medics met officers in the parking lot, and everyone grabbed the needed equipment. They had a one-fourth-mile track to get to the teen. Everyone moved quickly at a half-run, with hands full, down through the park to the creek bank where the teen had shot himself. Shane went to the boy and opened his airway. He was lying on muddy ground. The teen had seizures after the trauma to the brain. All the snow was gone around him. Greg bared his chest and attached ECG leads. Shane found a very strong carotid pulse, and the ECG indicated slowing but normal rhythm. The boy’s mouth was filling with blood, and he was drowning in it. Shane couldn’t apply an airway until he determined the stability of the facial bone stability. There was a small hole in the temple but no powder burns. Another unusual injury was a streak on the left side of the boy’s face, blue in color, running from the hole in the temple to the boy’s mouth.

Both medics came to the same conclusion: the teen had put the gun in his mouth, and the bullet or a bullet fragment had created the streak they were seeing, and the bullet may have missed the vital parts of the boy’s brain. There was no time to waste. Intubation had to be done quickly, for he would drown in his own blood. Suction was needed now. Both medics frantically looked for the portable, battery-powered suction unit. It was not there; it was still sitting on the bumper of the ambulance where Greg had put it and asked an officer to grab it.

They were losing precious time. Shane’s national registry training had included doing surgical tracheostomies; Greg had self-educated on the subject. Both medics had agreed it would be a good skill to have in their arsenal and went so far as to prepare a kit for the procedure. They would need medical control permission. While Shane prepared, Greg attempted to radio the doctor. After multiple attempts to contact med control and time running out, the medic agreed to go forward with the procedure.

Shane had located and sterilized the incision site. Greg grabbed the scalpel and made a superficial cut between Shane’s gloved fingers used as a guide. Blood started to spurt, and Greg hesitated. Shane yelled at him to finish the incision, and Greg went in deeper, breaching the internal trachea. Shane had a number 4 intubation tube lubed, and ready, he slid it in the opening and sealed the airway and immediately started pumping oxygen-rich air into the boy’s lungs.

The teen arrived at the hospital emergency room with a pink complexion and normal heart rate and blood pressure. Dr. John Peters was the doc on duty, and he was thrilled at the results. Further examination, x-rays, and a CT scan revealed the boy had held the gun away from his head when he pulled the trigger. The target was his temple, and the bullet had transected his brain. A fragment of the bullet had traveled downward into the boy’s mouth. All was not lost. The mother gave permission for her son’s organs to be harvested. His corneas, heart, and kidneys were all given to others so they could live normal lives.

The celebration didn’t last long. Both medics were immediately suspended for doing the procedure without permission. Dr. Maxwell Krandel, the head of medical control, set up separate hearings for the medics; Shane was scheduled first.

Dr. Krandel was a big advocate of the paramedic program, and it was said he was a fair man. This did little for Shane’s nerves. Dr. Krandel listened without interruptions to Shane’s explanation. Krandel recognized that location caused the radio failure and commended the medics’ preparation and decisive action. He then looked at Shane and asked why there was no attempt at digital intubation using his fingers to find landmarks inside the patient’s mouth to complete the intubation. Shane asked Dr. Krandel if he would be willing to pay for Shane’s treatment, hospital bills, and support of his family if he had stuck his hand into the teen’s mouth and found a jagged bone or the teen seized, bit down, exposing Shane to AIDS and a large list of other blood-borne diseases. Dr. Krandel paused for a long moment. He then told Shane to go back to work on his next scheduled shift. Greg’s hearing was cancelled.

The Greg and Shane partnership was doomed. Administration was not convinced that leaving the two innovative team together was a good idea. Both medics received new partners; both were junior status medics. Shane’s new crew member was Sharen Jones, a twenty-four-year-old female with two years of street experience. It was rumored that Sharen liked the junior medic role, avoiding the stress of the senior position. Shane didn’t care. He was now on the hunt for a third career change. He needed better wages. Katie and the girls deserved better than living just above poverty.

The new team quickly developed a consistent pattern of function: Shane in the lead, Sharen would follow. Shane questioned why Sharen was good in many areas and was cool under fire. Early in their partnership, Shane tried to force Sharen to take more responsibilities in patient treatment, but he gave that up after the first three weeks. Sharen was a good driver and in skills but let her partner lead in patient diagnosis and treatment decisions. Soon they had a smooth rhythm, and that was fine with both.

The new team was put to the test early on a Friday morning. They were dispatched to Main St. and Division Ave, a corner just south of the downtown center. Radio information indicated Large River police were on scene with a young female, early twenties. She was unconscious lying on the sidewalk. The call was three blocks from the ambulance barn, and the medics were on scene in sixty seconds. Sharen was out of the truck before it stopped. She grabbed the cervical collar bag and the trauma bag. Shane gloved and went to the patient. An officer was holding her up on her left side trying to get her to respond. Shane used his usual technique: He grabbed a nasal airway, lubed it, and slid it home. The girl had no gag reflex. She was cold to the touch but breathing a normal rate. He found no indications of trauma, but her pupils indicated opioid overdose.

Sharen had the spinal board ready, and the medics lifted the hypothermic girl onto the stretcher. Before they could secure the patient, they heard a bloodcurdling scream. A young male, same age as the female, was running at the crew full bore like a raging bull. Just before impact, a large police officer stepped out of the shadows and stiff-armed the subject, knocking him flat and unconscious. Shane called for a second ambulance, slapped a cervical collar on the suspect, had a firefighter hold his head, and as soon as the second ambulance arrived, he and Sharen took their patient